Treatment of myelodysplastic syndrome and atypical leukemia with low-dose aclarubicin

Abstract

To study the therapeutic effect of low-dose aclarubicin (ACR), we carried out comparative treatment of 15 patients with myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) and atypical leukemia using this drug. Complete remission (CR) was achieved in three patients with RAEB-t and one patient with AML, partial remission was obtained in one patient with RAEB and hematological improvement in one patient with refractory anemia (RA). Interestingly, prolonged CR for more than 26 months with persistent chromosomal abnormalities was observed in a case of AML, which progressed from RA. Myelosuppression caused by low-dose ACR was milder than that caused by low-dose Ara-C. Furthermore, in vitro studies indicated that ACR induced differentiation of bone marrow cells from one patient with MDS. From these observations, it is suggested that low-dose ACR may be an alternative to low-dose Ara-C for treatment of MDS, and that the in vivo effect of ACR may be mediated by the differentiation of abnormal hemopoietic clones.